Civics Lesson, Part 1

A few years after we moved into the Farm House, Wifey and I formulated a plan for the front landscaping. We hoped to install a nice lawn in the front, with a row of hybrid tea roses along the south side and a row of lavender bushes in front of the veranda. Someday.

But we were waiting until the exterior restoration was done, and the long drought was over. Until such a time, we felt it was both prudent and civically responsible to maintain the front yard in a natural state, with a weed-free, neatly-groomed, thick blanket of pine straw over everything. In other words, we had a xeriscape. All the cool kids were doing it, and the City actively encouraged it in their bi-monthly propaganda mailing.

Apart from our front landscaping’s being congruent with the City’s oft-expressed desires, it was inarguably appropriate historically in this historical district, having been a nicely-groomed version of what the Farm House has had as far back as living memory goes around here. The thick blanket of pine straw kept the soil cool, well-nourished, and at the proper pH for the giant pine tree in our yard to maintain optimal health. No additional water was required, which is the ideal xeriscape.

We did what was necessary to keep the yard neat. We kept it free of weeds and debris. We kept the area around the tree clear of pine straw. We kept the walkways swept. We kept the parkway strip, which has a Bermuda-grass lawn, mowed and edged.

We never received a hint of a complaint about our front landscape, from any quarter. As a matter of fact, we expected to have a big fight on our hands with the City when we finally undertook to install a lawn.

And then, after a wet winter, the drought was officially over in the state, at least for the time being. On the very day of Governor Brown’s declaration to that effect, the City swooped down on us in the form of a code-compliance officer—let’s call him Robespierre Corday—who served us with a citation for inadequate landscaping, giving us a month to correct the violation, and threatening us with a steep fine if we failed to comply. This was in March 2017.

This Mr. Corday was very apologetic, but despite our most eloquent pleas in favor of continued environmental responsibility, he claimed that there was nothing he could do, that a complaint had been made, we were found to be in violation of City code, and his hands were thus tied. When we asked him who had made the complaint, he said he was unable to give us that information. You see, in the rugged regulatory forest of Pasadena, one is not allowed to face his accuser.

I was greatly concerned by this development, because I was just preparing to get back to work on the house now that the rains were over, and I was afraid that the demands of maintaining a landscaped front yard would severely impact the restoration work.

And so, in consultation with our excellent arborist and horticultural consultant Javier, we came up with a plan that would satisfy the technical requirements of the code with minimum impact on the environment, our water bill, and my time. It was a simple plan that would provide both green foliage and colorful, plentiful blooms, watered entirely by highly-efficient drip irrigation.

When we outlined the plan with Corday, however, he advised that in our best interests he could not recommend it. You see, he had no authority to approve such a plan, and if executed, it stood an even chance of not being approved by the City, in which case we’d have to tear it out and start over.

We would thus as a practical matter have to write up the plan in detail, with scaled drawings, and present it before some committee for approval before we did it. This would take a great deal of time and effort, and even then we stood nothing better than the same even chance of approval.

Corday’s strong suggestion was to install a lawn. That he had the authority to approve on his own. A lawn and some nice plants in front of the house, and he would go happily on his way.

Now, it is possible that our good friend Robespierre truly did have our best interests at heart. And it is quite plausible that he was being straight with us regarding the fate of our plan. But let’s take a step back and get a wider view of this situation.

Ever since we moved here, Wifey and I have received official exhortations from the City regarding the civic virtue of water-wise landscaping. They even offered incentives to install a xeriscape. Skeptical as we are about such things, after a decade or so of this messaging we came to believe that the City meant what it said.

It was thus natural, when the City pressed us for a landscaping plan, to offer in good faith a manifestly water-wise one. Corday’s response revealed that, whatever his personal intentions were, the City was not acting in good faith. If they were serious about encouraging water-wise landscapes, they wouldn’t have put up such high bureaucratic hurdles in the way of our installing one.

And there is more to it than just that. Again, irrespective of Corday’s personal intent, he as the official representative of the City, acting under color of its authority, was essentially threatening us with costly bureaucratic sanctions if we did not install the landscape he dictated.

We had acted in good faith and against our wishes. In response, the City had reflexively shown us its middle finger. Because, you know, it can.

On the one hand, I was white-hot with righteous rage at this unjust and unjustifiable exercise of raw bureaucratic power. I felt an obligation of honor to all the signers of the Declaration of Independence and all the brave men who stormed Normandy on D-Day to fight, and between Wifey and me, I knew we had what it takes to win.

On the other hand, Corday was bullying us into installing precisely the landscape we wanted. Despite my moral outrage, I in the final analysis could not believe our good fortune. There is no honor in the refusal to take an own-goal by the other team.

You see, what I had long feared was that we would actually be forced to install the typical depression-inducing, beige-and-khaki thanascape consisting of “native plants” that render the land beneath them useless. The water-wise landscape we suggested was rather a sacrificial offering intended to arrive at something with the same impact on the water supply as a thanascape while avoiding one.

And by the way, the claim that such plants are native is thoroughly risible; I have seen many pictures of this land before development, and judging from them, the only plant truly native to this area is crabgrass. All we had to do to get that was to stop pulling it out.

Javier graciously offered to install the landscaping himself, which offer we accepted gladly because we knew that he would do it in such a way that there would be no negative impact on the pine tree’s health. Javier has always been very good to us, and I think he took on the job because he wanted to make sure that the pine tree would continue to thrive. He is truly a tree doctor, and he cares deeply about every one of his patients.

And of course, Javier did a marvelous job with the lawn. While the soil needed no amendment, he made sure to remove the many rocks, and to contour the soil so it would retain its historical rolling character without being so hilly that uniform watering and mowing would be difficult.

He in fact was very enthusiastic about the job. “You’re going to have a very lovely lawn,” he told me. “You did a great job laying out the walkways, with the nice undulation in the approach and the radiused junctions. Most people have square, flat, boring postage stamps of green. You are going to have a nice rolling meadow.”

As it turned out, he was right: we did have a nice rolling meadow.

The result was astoundingly transformative.

The vast expanse of lush greenness instantly pulled the house firmly into its environment, creating an organic whole of the house and yard that will only be intensified once I complete the exterior restoration, and plant lavender around the front of the house.

But I was right, too: the maintenance demands of the new landscape, especially the lawn, immediately ate up most of my time and energy. During the summer, the lawn grows so vigorously that it needs mowing twice a week.

This became a serious matter once my heart condition surfaced. My cardiologist cautioned me to avoid undue exertion, saying, “You don’t want to have your first heart episode in your current condition. It may prove to be your last one.”

Fortunately, by that time I had greatly streamlined the maintenance process, and had exchanged my old push mower for a swell self-propelled electric one, so all I really had to do was walk leisurely behind it, and Wifey took over the more strenuous tasks such as sweeping and raking. Even so, just the mowing took virtually all the energy I had available in the months before my operation, which is why I find myself in such a deep hole now.

Still, to paraphrase the late, great Chick Hearn: no episode, no foul. I came out okay, plus we have the front landscape we always wanted. Winning!

Of course, the City was not through with us yet….

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